6 ways to overcome flying anxiety and make travel more enjoyable

Are you looking forward to flying away this year? Or does the thought of flying fill you with dread? 

Flying anxiety – also known as aviophobia – can affect even those who’ve previously enjoyed travelling. Some people avoid flying altogether, while others still fly but experience discomfort or rely on alcohol to ‘get through’ the experience.

Would you like to make your experience of flying more pleasurable? In this article, we'll explore some of the steps you can take to improve your experience and increase your confidence in taking an anxiety-free flight.

Why does flying trigger anxiety?

Fear of flying can be rooted in several factors:

• Some people might have concerns about the safety of the aircraft, about how the plane manages to stay in the air. After all, it feels like quite an unnatural process.
• There can be a buildup of anxiety in getting to the airport, going through the check-in and security processes and getting to the right gate in time, before you even get on the plane.
• Once onboard, we might experience unfamiliar physical sensations. For instance, there may be sensations from the air pressure changes. We might have ear discomfort or feel dehydrated.
• This can mingle with the strange noises we hear onboard, such as sounds from the landing gear, the movement of the flaps, the noise and sensations of acceleration and take off.
• Stories in the media add to anxiety. Of course, we only hear the bad news, not about the many thousands of flights that land safely every day.

How does aviophobia compare with other phobias?

Aviophobia is not a simple phobia. It has elements of agoraphobia (a fear of being outside your home or comfort zone) and claustrophobia (fear of being in an enclosed space), and sometimes acrophobia (fear of heights).

For some people, it can include elements of being afraid you won’t get to the toilet in time, that you’ll make a fool of yourself in front of other people, that you’ll have a panic attack or that there will be nowhere to escape to.

If you’ve had previous bad experiences of anxiety while flying, it can be difficult to forget them. So you find your mind going back to the previous panic and this affects your expectations of any future trip. This is where a therapist can help you to put the bad experience behind you and create a better future.

6 steps to fearless flying 

1. Get informed about flying 

Do you worry about some of the technical aspects, such as how the plane manages to fly and stay in the air? If so, it can make sense to find out more about this. If you are a relatively inexperienced passenger, you can familiarise yourself with what to expect, including the take-off, landing and safety precautions, so you can feel more empowered.

Many airlines run courses to cover all aspects of flying operations for nervous flyers. But there is also information available on the internet to explain the principles of flight and to help you understand, for example, what causes turbulence and when you might expect it.

2. Get there in good time

Leave plenty of time for your journey to the airport, the check-in, and the passage through security. Ideally, you will allow sufficient time to undertake all the activities in a leisurely way, also allowing for unexpected hold-ups. Keeping calm and collected, you will be in a better frame of mind as you board the flight, rather than if you have had to rush.

3. Learn from past experience

You may have had bad experiences in the past. It doesn’t mean you will automatically repeat those, but it’s useful to consider them to analyse what went wrong and how to prevent it in the future. It can highlight the points at which you may be vulnerable so that a therapist can help you to increase your resilience.

Our past experience inevitably informs future expectations, so it may be important for a therapist to ‘neutralise’ or detraumatise the ‘bad trips’ to ensure your future success. Similarly, you might have memories of previous good trips that can be used as a helpful resource for the future.

4. Learn to relax yourself

It will be helpful to learn a relaxation method. One of the simplest is to control your breathing by using breathing exercises. Once you slow the breath, everything else (such as heart rate and racing thoughts) also slows down to follow the breath.

Another useful method is to learn to tense and relax your muscles. The method known as progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) involves deliberately tensing muscles for a count of five seconds. You would focus on individual muscle groups, such as neck and shoulders, arms, chest and stomach, one at a time. After tensing, when you breathe out and release the tension, this is followed automatically by relaxation of the muscle.

This is particularly helpful on the plane when you have limited opportunity to walk around. It can serve the dual purpose of both relaxing you and exercising your muscles. Although you may have limited space in which to move while sitting, you can still tense and relax the muscles of your feet, hands and other parts of the body.

5. Use anchors for relaxation

A hypnotherapist using NLP can help you create and access an anchor to help you relax on the flight. An anchor is a strong association between a feeling and a visual, auditory or kinaesthetic trigger. So a feeling of relaxation can be associated with a particular sound, a visual stimulus or a physical motion. For example, you might experience a feeling of relaxation when you press together your forefinger and thumb once that anchor has been established by the therapist. Once set up, this is something you can practise, strengthen and use by yourself whenever needed.

5. Positive visualisation for fearless flying

When you anticipate a coming journey, it’s worth spending some time on actively visualising all aspects of the trip, including the boarding of the plane, the take off and flying time, and the landing.

Visualise your journey going successfully at all stages. Imagine the outcome you want. If thoughts come to mind of problems arising or negative feelings, acknowledge them but let them go. See yourself in your imagination overcoming the problems leading to a successful result.

Imagine your successful outcome. Envisage yourself at your destination, after the plane has landed, feeling calm and relaxed, walking off the plane with a big smile.

6. Empowering inner talk

Affirmations are extremely useful to take control of your inner voice. If you tend to say or think negative things to yourself, it can help to prepare some affirmations about the way you are feeling and coping positively with the experience. Always phrase affirmations in the present tense as if the change you want to see is already happening. These statements can effectively change your ‘inner talk’ to be optimistic and supportive of the changes you are making.

Affirmations can even help you to positively enjoy the experience and to focus on what is most pleasant about flying, rather than simply tolerating it.

How can hypnotherapy help?

Hypnotherapy can help you feel more confident and relaxed about flying by training your brain to focus on the positive outcome.

Brain Working Recursive Therapy (BWRT®) has been shown to be effective in alleviating phobias and anxieties, including flying anxiety. It works at the level of the reptilian part of the brain to replace a learned fear with a more appropriate response. Often, only a couple of sessions are needed to establish a new response, feeling just the way you want to feel during the flight.

So if you’ve felt restricted or debilitated in the past by your response to flying, things can change. You just need to find the right strategy to help you enjoy the experience and open up your life.